http://www.murga-linux.com/puppy/viewto ... 67#1021267
Just playing with Android GNURoot Debian on my not-rooted 8 inch android version 6 tablet (EDIT: and also on old Huawei 512M RAM android phone - see below for details, including screenshots of Linux including X running on my old, low-powered, android version 4.4.2 phone - I've put a 16GB SD card in both systems, though only a small SD card would probably be enough for most things). On first install, GNURoot Debian only provided commandline shell, but will auto-install X when the xterm icon it also shows is clicked (see below for details) - seems to have pretty good Debian system on it with core utils and perl pre-installed. Currently installing gcc with:
Code: Select all
apt-get upgrade
apt-get install gcc
Debian version 8.1 (jessie); kernel 3.4.39
Can use with X GUI apps if you install vnc or android X server such as XSDL.
Nice to play with and hope to set it up to work like my DebianDog systems and to adapt some Puppy utils/apps to work with it. Wonder if there is a version of gtkdialog that will work on this android set up - maybe fatdog has one (or hopefully will compile ok on GNURoot Debian running system)?
Just started playing with it though, whilst using free WiFi whilst drinking a coffee in local cafe...
Can get the apps from google play store.
Would be interesting if folk could post links to other android-based Linux systems they have experience of using, and whether they need rooted devices or not and if tried with X apps.
Above system involved no complicated installation steps. Just press install button and it just works...
EDIT1: Just for fun, have now installed GNURoot Debian on my old Huawei 512M RAM android 4.4.2 phone. Working fine at the commandline - no problem - very neat! Like my tablet this phone is not rooted. gcc compiler has even installed (using apt-get install gcc) successfully on the old Huawei phone... Screenshot of top command running on the old phone is attached.
EDIT2: Wow! I pressed the Xterm button at top of screen in GNURoot Debian and it seems to be automatically installing x11 and tightvnc, so if space doesn't run out it should be able to run X apps once install is complete... Alternative would be to install separate android X server such as XServer XSDL.
EDIT3: Yeah, X11 is now running on the old 512M RAM Huawei phone (I had to remove some apps to get extra space on it). An xterm has popped up and it has wm decorations of some sort. Might be twm window manager but I'm not sure since don't know how to use some keyboard keys (such as tab, ctrl or replacements for right and left click that a mouse would provide). Will find out eventually I'm sure. This is quite exciting...
EDIT4: Oh, there is a wee icon at the foot of the X display which, if you press it, opens up all the cursor keyboard keys I was just talking about! (similar icon opens up main android keyboard when required - just tap the twm background to see keyboard icon). Commandline completion/history works fine with the on-screen provided cursor keys too... And I've just typed 'ps aux' in the displayed xterm and see from the process list that twm window manager is indeed currently being used. This on an old crappy Android phone. Obviously it will all work even better on my 8in tablet or on a more modern android phone...
EDIT5: The system provides a drop-down Window command (kind of like screen application) so you can jump to different commandline sessions.
twm is fine, but I'll probably install openbox on my android tablet copy of this - just have to also find out how to get that onscreen keyboard with tab, ctrl and cursor keys also working under openbox!
EDIT6: I haven't played much with this yet, so may be wrong, but believe it likely uses a chroot jail for installation, in which case it will be isolated from the rest of your Android filesystem. That would mean you won't be able to directly access other files stored on your android. However, since the GNURoot Debian is able to access the internet you will be able to use internet client/server techniques to communicate with the main 'android system' for file-sharing and so on. There may of course be other means provided by GNURoot Debian system itself - I just haven't looked into that side of things as yet... Come to think of it, the GNURoot Debian installed vnc client/server provided might be set up to provide file-sharing as is.
EDIT7: As pop-up window tells you: Direct, Swipe, Pan - Tap with one finger whenever you want to left-click, two fingers to right-click and three fingers to middle-click. Swipe with two fingers to scroll. Long tap to drag and drop. (I'm finding that I can scroll down, for example in long leafpad text, by using three fingers on the main leafpad window. Rotating the phone screen back and forwards often seems to get things 'back to normal' after using android pinch zoom, for example).
EDIT8: See link below for some more details about tablet/phones I've currently tried running GNURoot Debian on and answer to a query by mikeslr. Also includes some interesting links/tutorial about GNURoot Debian for android:
http://murga-linux.com/puppy/viewtopic. ... 328#986328
See also TERMUX. Links about that in second post of this thread.
wiak